


Where Your Mind Lives

by coatofflowers



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Autistic Pidge | Katie Holt, Birthday, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Hunk (Voltron) has ADHD, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Characters Will Show Up I Promise, Sleepwalking, Trans Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coatofflowers/pseuds/coatofflowers
Summary: Four times Lance's sleepwalking habit was harmless—annoying, maybe, or strange, but harmless. One time it wasn't.- - -Part one: In which Pidge and Hunk work together to make Lance a surprise for his birthday, and Lance almost inadvertently ruins it.





	Where Your Mind Lives

**Author's Note:**

> quick note, so hopefully i won't get comments about this (tho i know i still will): lance's birthday is in fact july 28th! i started writing this fic before his birthday was announced, and i guessed that he would be born in june, and had hunk give him an appropriate nickname. even though it's canon that he's a july baby, i didn't want to change it for this fic, so hopefully you can look past it (it's only referenced like once anyway lol). thanks y'all
> 
> also, if you see a footnote..... hover over it. c: if you're on mobile and thus can't hover, the footnotes are at the end of the chapter! only the first chapter will have these footnotes; i just thought it was something in-character for pidge to do :>

Of all the birthday shenanigans Pidge has been implicated in during her 18 years of life, this has got to be one of her least favorites.

Not because she dislikes the idea, or because she doesn’t love[1] Lance and thus is anything other than completely enthused about his birthday. It’s more the role she’s been cast in that she takes issue with—see, she wouldn’t have any issue with being a goods-purchaser, or a streamer-hanger-upper, or literally anything that doesn’t require her to be standing in fleece pajamas in Hunk and Lance’s kitchen, at 8 in the goddamn morning, making cookies.

And yet.

It doesn’t help that Mrs. Olivera’s special recipe (“Can he _really_ tell the difference between his mom’s cookies and regular peanut butter cookies?” Pidge had asked with a healthy degree of doubt; Hunk acted like it was the stupidest question ever) is what Pidge can only describe as “unnecessarily complicated”. It involves a specific brand of chocolate chips that they had to drive forty-five out of town to find, three (!!) different kinds of peanut butter, a spice that she couldn’t even pronounce the name of and “a whole lot of finesse”, which isn’t an actual baking ingredient, _thank you, Hunk._ The very minute Lance left for work in the morning, Pidge was dragged out of her house and down to the nearest grocery store, and the ensuing Lord-of-the-Rings-esque journey to collect all of the ingredients took literally the entire day. Hunk is, of course, orchestrating everything, being the birthday boy’s boyfriend, and also being Hunk, registered as a professional control freak in all 50 states and the Virgin Islands.

And honestly, a big part of Pidge would’ve been fine with letting Hunk do all the work today, but she’s not a quitter. She’s a scientist, goddamn it, governed by the unquenchable desire to collect experience, expand knowledge, deepen understanding. No self-respecting scientist would back down from some challenge simply because they’ve never done it before.

As it turns out, this is actually probably the least like a brave scientist and the most like a clumsy child that she’s ever felt. Stepping away from the counter, she wrinkles her nose at her hands, all clumped up with dough. Gooey. Sticky. Not a pleasant sensory experience. Earlier she tried wearing vinyl gloves, but that was even worse, because she had sweaty hands and it made the plastic stick to her skin, and—bleugh[2]. She doesn’t even want to think about it.

“You should like this, Pidge!” Hunk, meanwhile, is what Pidge would call in his element, and clearly not having a series of very small sensory crises. His voice has the same tone as his rainbow-colored cloth apron[3]: bright to a fault. He even looks more science-y than Pidge, with his smart thick-framed glasses, hair tied up in a little ponytail. “It’s science. But science you eat.”

Pidge frowns at her little cookie dough mittens. She wiggles her fingers and watches clumps of batter go flying, freckling a spot of counter that Hunk literally just wiped down. That’s fun, at least.

“More like science that makes a mess,” she mumbles. Hunk laughs, gives her a pat on the shoulder and turns away to continue working his cookie magic.

A few minutes later, the batter is sufficiently mixed (although, to Pidge, it looks just as lumpy and barf-like as it did when they started), and the pair are side-by-side again, rolling little balls of dough between their palms and lining them up on a cookie sheet. Pidge glances at the clock intermittently, half because she wants this to be over ASAP, but also because Lance is supposed to be home in about two hours. It won’t suffice to simply have the cookies finished and stashed away by then; they’ll need to erase all traces of the act from the kitchen if they want to keep this a surprise. Hunk’s been assuring Pidge all day that he’s got a plan for that, too, and responding with only a grin every time she asked for more details, in prime Hunk fashion. So she has no choice but to trust him.

“How’d the red herring go?” Pidge asks, after a few minutes of rolling and placing.

Hunk doesn’t look up, concentrating on what he’s doing. “Well, I told Keith to ask Lance what his favorite beer was. And, like, make some leading comments about fancy frosted glasses and stuff.” The look on Hunk’s face, when Pidge peeks at him, makes it clear just how proud he is of this idea. “So he’s gonna think it’s a beer set.”

She hums in response. “That’s—” Then her hands freeze. “Wait, sorry. You said Keith?”

“Yeah.”

Pidge looks up. Hunk is still smiling proudly at himself, which means that he hasn’t properly registered the huge glaring problem with what he just said.

“You trusted _Keith_  with a task requiring subtlety?” she presses, frowning.

This time Hunk gives her a look. “Yes?”

" _Keith?_  Keith, who has the delicate touch of a falling piano?” Hunk frowns back, reaching across her to grab a paper towel from the other side of the counter. Pidge doesn’t move out of his way. “Keith, as in, the Keith who might as well be goddamn Pinocchio with how bad he is at lying?”

Hunk’s mouth draws into a thin line. “Pidge. You and I both know that I’ve never been wrong about anything, ever, in my life.”

She makes a frustrated noise. “Yes, Hunk, but—”

“Keith can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

 _“Keith can do it,”_  Hunk repeats with a completely undeserved degree of confidence, then switches back to his Happy Voice[4]. “See, the beer thing is perfect because Lance would actually like that gift, but not nearly as much as he’d like what we’re _actually_ getting him. So he’s not, like, all bummed because he thinks we’re getting him a crappy gift, but he’ll still be happy when we surprise him. You know?”

Pidge frowns, fitting in one final dough ball onto the corner of the cookie sheet. “You’re a genius.”

Hunk beams. “Thanks. Open the oven?”

Cut to a few hours later. The cookies came together without a hitch, as Pidge expected with bake-master Hunk at the reins. Lance came home exactly on schedule, brain-numb from dealing with cranky customers at GameStop all day. Hunk had masterfully covered up the lingering cookie smell by making fish for dinner (which Pidge appreciated the spirit of, but elected to eat some leftover fried chicken she found in the fridge instead, because she’s a human being and not a shark). Then they all migrated to the living room half of their “open concept” apartment and got through seven episodes of _The Office_ before the boys effectively passed out, and Pidge had to poke them awake, since they were occupying the couch that was meant to be hers for the night.

Of course, she wasn’t actually _sleeping_ on said couch at the moment—instead, after the boys went to bed she spent the next few hours sitting at the kitchen counter on her laptop, initially meaning to just peruse Facebook for a while but now sixty-seven pages deep into _Zelda_ wiki, for some reason. She remembers every once in a while that she’s supposed to be getting up early to decorate the apartment with Hunk, which means she shouldn’t be staying up until—10, 11:25, 12:37. Every time she looks at the clock it seems the night has slipped further and further away from her.

The thought that she should stop being an asshole and at least go lay down on the couch is just beginning to crystalize in her mind when she hears a creak, and her head snaps up immediately—but oh. It’s just Lance, standing in the doorway in his set of blue plaid pajamas. His eyes are barely even open.

“Hey,” Pidge greets, blinking. Lance grunts in response, not looking her way. He stands still a moment, shoulders tilted oddly, before rubbing his face and stepping in to the kitchen proper.

She shifts a little. “Uh, what’cha doing?”

“Nothin’,” says Lance, but something's off with the delivery—it's strange and slow, almost slurring. Pidge frowns at him, watching him shuffle around the kitchen counter, one hand gracelessly trailing along the wall.

The sight sparks recollection of something that Hunk said a long time ago, about this _thing_ that Lance does sometimes. Usually only when he's had a rough day, or he's just flat out exhausted, but sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. It's just a little thing that started when he was a kid and he never quite grew out of. Pidge checks the time on her laptop again for confirmation that it’s—yup, it’s 1:02 in the morning, far later than Lance ever stays up.

Pidge looks back at the slow-moving boy. Gears click into motion in her brain.

“Lance, are you . . . awake?”

Nothing.

Holy goddamn hell.

Grinning, Pidge slowly closes her laptop, pushing it aside so she can lean forward. Lance has reached the counters and is thoughtlessly starting to open up cupboards, seemingly with no pattern. He never responded to her question, which—alright, makes sense. Trying to keep the laughter out of her voice, Pidge tries again. “What are you looking for?”

This time, a response: Lance grunts out a word that sounds roughly like, “Cookies.”

“Cookies? You mean—” Her eyes grow wide. No way. Oh, fuck, he knows. “No. _Shit._ How did you find out? We were careful!”

Lance, not touched in the least by Pidge’s anguish, continues his pointless rifling.

“I mean, we were so _good,”_ Pidge laments. “Hunk had Keith hit you with that red herring and everything, and—oh, fuck, that’s how you figured it out, isn’t it?” God damn it. She _warned_ Hunk that they should keep Keith away from the surprise part of Lance’s present. His interference increased the chances of Lance finding out astronomically, she’d said—and, as always, she was right. “Fucking Keith. He’s such a shit liar, I knew it. You’d think someone who’s been to juvie wouldn’t be so bad at lying about a birthday present, right?”

Presently, her company ignores her.

“Well.” Pidge pushes up her glasses, heaving a sharp sigh. “Guess I’ll have to blow him crap in the morning, like usual. I say Keith doesn’t get any cookies. That’s his punishment for ruining the surprise.”

Lance hasn’t responded at all to her tirade; instead, he’s still mechanically working his way through the cupboards. Metal rattles as he pulls open the silverware drawer. Despite herself, Pidge wiggles in her seat to try and get a better look at what he’s doing. “Lance, there’s no cookies in there. I promise.”

Lance responds with a grunt that may or may not contain actual words. He opens the next drawer, which Pidge vaguely remembers being full of oven mitts.

“They’re not there either,” she says, giggling. “Jesus, I thought Hunk was kidding about this. Does he really put up with this all the time?”

“Do I put up with what?”

That would be the voice of Hunk, emerging from the melty darkness of the hallway and shuffling towards Pidge, right on cue. He gives her, and her closed laptop, a pointed look. “Why aren’t you sleeping, small one?”

She takes a moment to note Hunk’s very just-woke-up appearance—massive pajama shirt with a pawprint pattern, hair a mess, glasses dangerously close to sliding off his nose—before jerking her head towards the kitchen scene. “Why aren’t _you_ wrangling your boyfriend?”

“Hmm?” Hunk’s dark gaze flits to the form moving about by the cupboards, and his brows immediately drop. “Ugh. _Lance.”_

 _“What?”_ Lance says, sounding annoyed.

“Come back to bed.” Hunk rubs his eye under his glasses, sighing when Lance doesn’t turn around or even acknowledge his voice. “Junebug,[5] come on, it’s one in the morning. Pidge, why didn’t you send him back to our room?”

“That’s not my job,” Pidge says. Hunk groans at her and she’s pretty sure he mumbles _why me_ under his breath. “Why are you up?”

“Because I heard cupboards being slammed. I was hoping it was you.”

“Nope,” says Pidge. “Is it always like this?”

“Sometimes he’s more coherent and you can actually, like, talk to him. It’s like . . . ” Hunk scratches his chin, still frowning. “He’s not really asleep, I guess, but he’s definitely not awake, either. He’s a weird mix of both.”

“Has he ever tried to leave the apartment or anything?” Pidge asks, curious. She knew Matt used to sleepwalk when he was a kid, but it’d only happened once or twice, and she didn’t remember much aside from hearing her parents’ voices out in the hall at odd hours of the night.

“Nope. At least—not that I’ve ever seen?” Hunk casts a glance at his boyfriend, brow creasing slightly. “I mean, I guess he could leave, if he wanted—Jesus, that would be bad, if he got outside. He could get hit by a car or something. Oh my God, and I wouldn’t even know until the morning . . . ”

Whoops. Her careless question-asking apparently triggered Hunk’s panic response. Engage distraction. “Will he remember this in the morning?” Pidge asks next, trying to guide Hunk’s attention back to less frightening territory.

The diversion appears to be successful; Hunk’s big brown eyes are on Lance again, not anxiously staring at nothing. His voice sounds a little calmer. “No, probably not. He says sometimes he remembers bits and pieces.

Pidge hums a little, thinking. Maybe he'll remember rifling around, then, or the sound of Pidge's voice asking him questions. Then, in a flash, she remembers: _the cookies._

Damn it. She needs to tell Hunk, lest Lance ruins the surprise tomorrow. Pidge takes a deep breath, then leans forward, controlling her tone carefully. “Hunk, he knows about the cookies.”

Hunk gasps. “What? No.”

“Yes. That’s what he’s looking for.”

 _“No,”_ Hunk moans, covering his face with his hands. "How? We did so good!"

“I know.” Pidge bites her lip. She feels a little bad for Hunk, honestly, even if it _was_ most likely his(/Keith's) fault that this happened. Hunk doesn't like things not going according to his plan. “Should we still . . . ?”

“Yeah, let’s just . . . let’s just stick to what we planned.” His voice drops to a low mutter. Pidge leans in to catch his words. “Lance isn’t going to put up an act like he doesn’t know, he’s not like that. He’ll like it anyway. Let’s just stick to the plan, okay?”

“Stick to the plan. Got it.” It’s not an ideal solution, sure, but one that will avoid as much awkwardness as possible. Hopefully. Maybe. Knowing herself, there’s a good chance she’ll make it awkward anyway. Pidge makes a mental note to let Hunk handle the talking tomorrow.

“I can’t find them,” Lance complains. He’s staring hard at the boxes of cereal lined up in a cupboard as if he can turn them into cookies through sheer willpower.

Hunk heaves a resigned sigh, circling around the kitchen counter to get to Lance. “Yeah, that was the whole point, sugar. Let’s go back to bed.” He takes Lance by the arm, and at first it looks like Lance is going to resist—but then he just mumbles something unintelligible and allows himself to be led out of the kitchen. Pidge cranes her neck and watches them shuffle down the hallway until they disappear back into their bedroom.

Then she sighs, casting a look at the couch behind her. Well, this night took a disappointing turn. She may as well head to bed now, so she can be something approaching "chipper" for the decoration part of the plan tomorrow morning. Hopefully, that will cheer Hunk back up.

And if not, well. At least she has peanut butter cookies to look forward to.

 

* * *

 

 

So, in accordance with ‘the plan’, Pidge finds herself yet again up at a much earlier hour than she would normally prefer. It’s six, specifically, when she awakes to Hunk poking her, already dressed in his nice jeans[6] and a navy blue button-up, which was the outfit he had picked out specifically for Lance’s birthday.

After a quick breakfast of cereal, the two of them waste no time in getting to work. The decoration process involves two entire rolls of scotch tape and a lot more of Pidge trying and failing to reach high things than she would care to admit, but all-in-all, it’s not nearly as messy as cookie baking was yesterday. And not as much of a sensory beat-up, either. Actually, she really likes crinkling the cheap paper streamers that they found at the grocery store yesterday. The noise is incredibly satisfying.

“Stop crumpling that stuff up and help me out,” then, is a sentence she hears quite a few times.

When it’s all said and done, the room is decked out with blue and gold streamers, a few cute little bundles of helium balloons, and some pictures that Hunk had pulled out of a box somewhere. Pidge stands in the doorway, admiring. “Looks nice,” she says, lifting her chin. “Like a party.”

“Yeah, but like, a really nice low-key party,” Hunk agrees.

They kill the next hour or so by playing _Overwatch_ with the volume turned low so that they don’t wake Lance. Even so, he appears at around 9—early for him—with his hair brushed and cute outfit picked out as if he has something to do today other than lay around and be doted on. He knows exactly what’s in store for him, too, if the shit-eating grin [7] and expectant look towards Hunk when he walks into the kitchen is anything to go by.

And if Lance has complete mastery over his role in today’s festivities, then Hunk can only be said to be his equal. He unties his apron the moment that Lance appears, smile spreading, and says “Happy birthday, baby,” like they’re in some kind of sitcom, and then Lance folds right into his open arms. Pidge looks at them fondly for about ten seconds, then frowns because it doesn’t seem like either of them are letting go anytime soon. What if they never do? Would their skin eventually grow into each other, fusing them together? She remembers reading an article about a man who sat on a toilet for so long that his flesh began to absorb the seat. Would that happen to them? Who would feed them, in that case?

Then Lance pulls away from the soul-fusing hug to give Hunk a kiss. Phew. Also, yuck, mouth-smooches. Germs.

“Aww, look at all this. You big cheese balls.” Lance’s gaze floats across the ceiling, taking in all the balloons, the streamers, and finally the collection of photographs that Hunk hung up on the blank expanse of wall behind them. “This is so cute, it’s like—oh my God, baby pictures? You guys!”

“That one was Hunk’s idea,” Pidge says as a knee-jerk defensive reaction, because she can’t tell is Lance’s tone is approving or not just yet. Baby pictures can be tricky territory sometimes. Hunk had promised that Lance would find it cute, so Pidge had begrudgingly trusted him.

“Of course it was. Holy crow.” Lance is bouncing on his heels, leaning in close to inspect the framed photo, a huge smile on his face. So he’s happy—good. Pidge squints at it too. It’s a cute pic—little baby Lance in a green sundress, standing on a rickety back porch, hamming it up for the camera. His hair is past his armpits, a giant, frizzy brown mess. Lance giggles. “Look at my hair. No wonder Dad called me ‘troll’. Babe, why’d you let him do that?”

“Because I was also three years old,” Hunk says, tugging on the back of Lance’s shirt to direct his attention away from the pictures. His smile is broad, bright. “Come on, Lance, we’ve got way more stuff in store. Breakfast at that new diner in town, Olivera-brand peanut butter cookies, that go-kart place is open at 10—”

Lance’s bouncing stops abruptly. He spins around, eyes huge. “Wait, hold on, hold on. You guys made my mom’s cookies? You got her recipe?”

Oh, right. Hunk and Pidge exchange quick looks, the smile on Hunk’s face rapidly souring. Here it comes.

“Babe,” Hunk says, turning back to Lance with furrowing brows. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, it’s cool that you already figured it out. Like, it was _supposed_ to be a surprise, but honestly, Pidge probably didn’t do a really good job of—”

“Excuse me?” Pidge scowls. The fucking _betrayal._ “Are you about to blame _me_ for him finding out? Because if it was anyone, it was Keith—”

Hunk rounds on her, his eyes narrowing to slits. “It wasn’t Keith, Pidge. I told you Keith would be fine.”

“And I told you he wouldn’t be!”

“Guys, wait,” Lance interrupts. “I’m serious, I honestly didn’t know.”

“What do you mean you didn’t know?” Pidge says, squinting at him. “You were looking for them last night.”

Lance gives her a blank look. “What?”

“Last night, you came into the kitchen and you said you were looking for the cookies.” He's still giving her that dead fish stare. She rolls her eyes. “You were sleepwalking.”

“I said that?”

“Yeah,” she says, frowning. “Well, you didn’t say you were looking for _those_ cookies, specifically . . . ”

Lance gives her a scrutinizing look. “So how do you know I wasn’t just looking for cookies in general?”

“Why would you _coincidentally_ be looking for cookies on the night before your birthday, when part of mine and Hunk’s birthday present to you is cookies?”

“Because I love cookies, Pidge!”

“Wait, wait. Okay.” Hunk has his _calm down_ hands up in the air, getting between them. “Hold on. Everyone stop.”

Lance gets a cross look on his face, but closes his mouth, folding his arms and fixing Pidge with a bitter look. Pidge stares right back. She has an older brother. She can match any stink-eye thrown at her.

“Okay.” Hunk turns to face Lance, who in turn quits staring at Pidge to make eye contact with him. Subsequently, the stink-eye fizzles out. “Babe, I love and trust you. So if you say you really didn’t know about the cookies, then . . . ” Here he falters, and Pidge can almost see the conflict in his brain. “I mean, okay, listen, that still seems unlikely.”

“I swear I didn’t already know,” Lance protests. “I’m serious. On my grandma’s grave.”

“Hmm.” _On my grandma's grave_ is a pretty strong endorsement; even Pidge will grant him that. Hunk is silent for a moment, brow furrowed in thought, before his shoulders droop. “Okay. Well . . . maybe you somehow did figure it out, but it didn’t actually register. Like your unconscious mind knew about the cookies, but your conscious mind didn’t? Sort of like how déjà vu works?”

“Uh.” Lance blinks. “Yeah. I guess? That could happen.” He looks at Pidge, who wrinkles her nose in growing, begrudging agreement.

Because, yeah, okay, if Lance knew the whole time he would’ve dropped the act by now. Definitely short of flat-out lying to his boyfriend. And since he knows he’s getting the cookies anyway, it wouldn’t be beneficial for him to . . . fine, okay, _fine,_ so she was wrong. She transmits apologetic thought-waves towards Keith, wherever he is, for implicating him in all of this. Even though it kinda made sense to.

“You’re an enigma, Lance,” is what she says out loud. “You really are.”

And Lance sticks his tongue out at her, but the heat's gone; it's back to the impish pestering that ordinarily characterizes their relationship. Which is good, because the last thing she wants is to have Lance be annoyed at her on his birthday. Later, as she and Hunk are watching Lance's whole face brighten up when he takes a bite of his mom’s famous cookies, Pidge comes to the conclusion that, in this instance, under these circumstances, she doesn't mind being wrong.

She has no grievances, then, about helping herself to a handful of the delicious cookies—not even chastised when Hunk eventually puts them away with a stern reminder that they're going out to breakfast in a little while. While she finishes up her stash, Hunk and Lance stand nearly head-to-head, looking at the baby pictures together. Pidge licks cookie grease off of her fingers and listens to their conversation:

Hunk: “You really didn’t know about the cookies, right?”

Lance: “Of course, babe. If I did I would’ve just said so.”

Hunk: “Okay.” There’s a pause. “But if you did find out somehow you know I wouldn’t really be mad. Right?”

Lance: “I know, Hunk.”

Hunk: “I’d be disappointed, though. Because _man,_ I was really looking forward to surprising you with those cookies.”

Then Lance laughs, a breathy, special sort of laugh which Pidge has noticed he saves exclusively for Hunk. The purpose of this specific laugh is a bit unclear but Pidge guesses it’s just a more attractive alternative to the cackling that Lance usually does.

Hunk: “And I’d rip Pidge twenty new buttholes, because I don’t care _what_ she says, I put my faith in Keith for a reason and there’s no way he’d—”

At this point Pidge elects to clear her throat loudly, because coming-to-peace-with-her-wrongness or _not_ she’s not about to sit around while her good name is dragged through the mud. "Don't we have breakfast to go to?"

"Right," says Hunk, clearly a little sheepish at being overheard. "Yeah. Let me just go get my shoes."

Then he's gone, down the hallway, and Lance bounces after him in excitement. Seeing how they brush up against each other by the front door, hearing their hushed voices and their laughter, Pidge finds it disarmingly hard to hold onto her fleeting irritation. And perhaps that's for the better. Irritation has no place in birthday festivities. These are two of her closest friends, anyway; as much as they might occasionally annoy her with their antics, or their bouts of pettiness, or their occasional lapses in common sense, Pidge will always be warm to them, underneath everything. She may not be one for romance, but seeing them happy together makes her happy. That's what matters at the end of the day.

"Pidge!" Lance's voice, from down the hall. It startles her out of her thoughts. "Come on, dude, I want waffles!"

Pidge sighs, shaking her head. "Coming."

 

* * *

 

  
  
**Footnotes:**

1 Some might say 'love' is a strong word to describe Pidge Holt’s feelings towards Lance Olivera. Those people don’t understand the intricacies of a friendship which subsists primarily on mutual horseshitting and gossip.

2 An onomatopoeic representation of the real actual noise she made.

3 “For gay chefs!” An actual quote, courtesy of Hunk Tamatoa.

4 Hunk has four distinctly recognizable voices that Pidge has observed: Happy Voice, Worried Voice, I Know I’m Right Voice, and Passive Aggressive Voice. According to Lance, he actually has at least twelve, but Pidge apparently doesn’t have the capacity to distinguish between ‘Low Anxiety’ and ‘Low-Medium Anxiety’, or Hunk’s five different flavors of ‘smug’.

5 This nickname refers to Lance being born in June. It has nothing to do with being crunchy or invasive or having hairy legs, even though two of those three things could feasibly be applicable to Lance, too.

6 _Nice jeans,_ noun. A pair of Levi’s or Diesels that one keeps folded away in some dusty drawer somewhere, to be worn no more than once a month. Pidge, as one can probably guess, does not own a pair of “nice jeans”.

7 Admission: this descriptor is redundant. Lance can't grin in a way that isn't 'shit-eating'.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> i started writing this a while ago, and decided to try and push out the first chapter (finally) for lance's birthday. the next chapter will be in hunk's POV!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! please leave kudos or a comment if you did; it makes my day! even an onomatopoetic transcription of guttural screaming will make me happy. you may also direct your screaming to my tumblr [@macklemoreover](www.macklemoreover.tumblr.com) if you'd like!


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